


Everything's Green

by voleuse



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-21
Updated: 2009-05-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 01:53:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>The symbolic action of combined willed endings.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything's Green

**Author's Note:**

> Post-series. Title and summary adapted from Jeffrey Encke's _A Study of Maps_.

_"Franklin Hollis wants me to take 10 billion dollars and go and fix the world."_

C.J. said yes to Hollis after a week and a half of vacation, a week and a half of pretending she didn't want to hear the news on the radio. A week and a half of watching CNN muted, closed-captioning on, because the news didn't really count if she couldn't hear it.

Besides, she kept the balcony doors of her hotel room wide open, and the sun shone in, and the seawinds swept through. It felt like a vacation because she could breathe, and even if she yelled at the monitor, she didn't have to call anyone to ask them what the hell they'd been thinking.

She tried not to think about packing up and moving back to California, because most of her belongings had been sitting in a storage facility in Reseda. She kept telling herself that, anyway, but she kept thinking her entire life was trapped in an apartment within walking distance of the press room.

She called room service and requested the unhealthiest dinner she could. She switched her silent TV to Fox News and spent an enjoyable evening shouting out each logical fallacy as it came up.

*

 

After two weeks of vacation, C.J. showed up at the door of Josh's apartment and asked him what the hell he'd been thinking. He blinked, and his mouth hung open like a guppy. She'd missed that.

"I ordered pizza," she remarked, shouldering past him. "Hey, Donna."

"Hey," Donna said. "How was California?"

"I drank mimosas at every meal, and beautiful men vied to rub my feet," C.J. replied.

Donna squinted. "You're lying to me."

"Only about one of those things," C.J. said. "Do you know what the hell Josh was thinking?"

"He probably wasn't," Donna responded. "Otherwise he'd never have stepped behind that podium."

"I can answer for myself, you know," Josh protested.

"Except not in any way concisely or accurately," C.J. said. "Not to anyone wearing press credentials."

Josh spluttered. "That is entirely--"

"Factual," C.J. finished. "Never do press conferences, Josh. Your very existence is blood in the water."

He pointed his finger, but then the doorbell rang, and C.J. handed him two twenties for the pizza. "Tip generously," she instructed. "It'll be a nice change for the delivery guy."

"Funny," Josh muttered, and C.J. strolled to the kitchen to grab a beer.

 

They got into another fight, a real one, when they were halfway finished with the pizza. She made a snide comment about a Chevron commercial, and before she knew it, Josh was ranting about the gas tax again, at how unrealistic she had been with the budget, and what the hell had _she_ been thinking, anyway?

Whenever he stopped for breath, C.J. jabbed through with comments on the management of expectations and setting a high bar. She watched the idea sink in, take hold, roll through Donna's mind. She watched Donna tilt her head, the way she did when she was picturing every branch in the road ahead.

When he finally ran out of steam, Josh let out a long sigh and took a sip of his ridiculously overpriced beer. "It's not everybody who can say no to the president," he bit out.

C.J. thought he meant to make her feel guilty--he had that look on his face, the one where he was certain of his righteousness. She let a riposte curl her tongue, but then he tipped his bottle, clinked the bottom of it against hers.

"Maybe it was the right call," he conceded. "Hollis needs you more than we do."

"Says the man who has me on speed-dial and calls me twice a day," C.J. replied.

"And this way we don't have to pay you," Donna quipped.

C.J . groaned, and Josh promised to pay for the pizza next time she bullied her way into his apartment.

*

 

It was late Sunday morning, and she had an hour and a half to kill between meetings that weren't really meetings because nobody wanted to admit they were having meetings during the weekend. She walked--she enjoyed the luxury of walking in the middle of the day--to the open-air market on Dupont Circle and browsed the warren of stalls. She smelled flowers she didn't have time to take to her hotel room, and sampled cheeses she couldn't put in her carry-on for the plane trip back home. She bought a paper bag filled with candied pecans and wondered why she never shopped there when she had access to a kitchen.

While she was staring at pasta, someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned, dreading a lobbyist, and found Kate instead.

"I thought you were in Oregon," she said, and offered Kate a pecan.

Kate shrugged as she munched. "Not all the time," she replied. "Have you got some time?"

C.J. didn't even look at her watch. "What kind of berries do you think are in season?"

"I have no idea." Kate looked up and down the aisles, then grinned. "Let's go find out."

*

 

C.J. flew back and forth, across continents and across oceans, and if Hollis's private jet wasn't as roomy as Air Force One, it was definitely more peaceful without the press corps entourage. The job was nothing like detox, but the hours were better, and ten billion dollars inspired more respect than she thought it would.

She sat with a group of bureaucrats and said she thought something should be done about the water main in a town in the middle of nowhere. It was something obvious and complex, expensive but simple. She told the room it needed to be done, and for some reason, nobody argued with her.

They asked each other questions, they discussed the logistics, and somebody promised her a memo before the day was done.

She leaned to her assistant as the paper-pushers shuffled out. "Why wasn't it this easy when I worked for the President?" she asked.

"You're in charge now," her assistant answered. "You have the first word and the last."

C.J. looked at her assistant and raised an eyebrow. "English major?"

"With a minor in geopolitics," her assistant replied with a laugh.

C.J. leaned back in her chair and waited for the next meeting to come to her.

*

 

The next time she landed in D.C., she took Toby to dinner. She told him everything about her day, because nothing was classified, just fragile when pronounced out loud. He told her everything about his book, though the emphasis was on the evils of marketing and why he couldn't respect two out of three of his editors.

They were staring at the last of the main course before she felt like herself again, and she thought his smile didn't reach his eyes until after dessert was done. She smiled at him, and he nudged his coffee out of the way so he could clasp her hand without shifting.

This was another thing she would have to fix, she thought. "Thanks for dinner," she said.

Toby's mouth quirked. "You say that as if I'm paying for it."

C.J. laughed. "I only _work_ for a billionaire, you know."

"And I'm a humble professor," Toby said. "Maybe I'll pick up the tab next time."

"Next time," C.J. affirmed.

"If you can take a break from saving the world," Toby continued.

She laughed again, and released his hand. "Right."

"I mean it," he countered, eyes serious, mouth quirked.

C.J. nodded. "I know," she said, and she didn't feel scared at all.


End file.
